When playing with the Seafarers Expansion, you must ensure that certain actions applying to roads are also possible for ships. The exploratory scenarios and all other scenarios with many smaller islands are unsuitable. In our experience, scenarios such as Heading To New Shores and Through the Desert are suitable. You can use the possibilities of the Seafarers expansion together with Cities & Knights. One major appeal of the game is attributable precisely to the threat of the barbarian army,which you have to prepare for as early in the game as possible and include in your strategic planning. Personally, I am not a big fan of such variants. You can, for instance, declare the first barbarian attack void or allow each player to have one activated knight at the beginning of the game.

There are certain “house rules” that may soften the impact of the barbarian attack at the beginning of the game. Knights are of no use as long as you don't have grain to activate them. Grain is very important for defending Catan. Such preparation will help you avoid being the target of the barbarian army, i.e., losing a city. Therefore, it is important to start building knights early in the game and to activate them. Considering this circumstance, it may take only 3 or 4 turns until the barbarian ship lands on Catan. This means, there is a 50% chance per turn for the barbarian ship to come one step closer to Catan. 3 sides of the event die show the barbarian ship. If not, the player(s) with the fewest knights each have a city downgraded to a settlement.In Cities & Knights, you roll 3 dice at the beginning of your turn: 2 production dice and 1 event die. If the island is successfully defended, the player(s) with the most knights are rewarded. These knights can be used to claim certain intersections and move the Robber (taking the place of Soldier cards), but are also used to defend the island from periodic barbarian attacks. (Some cards are balanced better as well – the new Resource Monopoly card, for example, can take no more than 2 of the named resource from any one player.)įinally, players can also build knights on the island along their network of roads. These cards are similar to the development cards in the base game, but with a wider range of effects. Building more improvements will increase these chances, but cards cannot be bought directly in any way.

Building city improvements gives players a chance to draw these cards with every roll of the dice. Second, the deck of development cards is replaced by three different decks, each corresponding to one of the commodities. (To make commodities easier to obtain, each player starts the game with 1 city and 1 settlement on the board.) These commodities allow players to build city improvements that confer various advantages and eventually points. Cities that would normally produce two of one of those resources instead produce 1 resource and 1 of the corresponding commodity. The game changes the base game in three main ways:įirst, there are 3 new commodities in the game, distinct from resources – paper, cloth, and coins, which can be acquired from Forest, Meadow, and Mountain spaces, respectively.

Catan cities and knights